Request Fleet MFD.

[Motherbrain]

I was wondering is it possible to make a MFD/plugin add-on that would let you fly a small fleet of ships without having all of them docked to an invisible "fleet" vessel? If you would like to try this idea here's what I want.
Say you have a ship like a Delta glider. And you have another ship like the Ravenstar class ship. Both are orbiting close to each other. And say you want to fly both ships the moon or to Mars but you don't want to fly each ship independently. You open this MFD and type in the name of the ship and click "add". Now the selected ship automatically nulls its relative velocity with its "mothership" and when the mothership turns, it turns. When the mothership fires its retro rockets, it fires its retro rockets.

Get it? And the plug in will automatically limit the ships power by the WEAKEST ship in the "fleet". So say you have a Delta glider and the Orbiter space shuttle in the "fleet". The delta glider would only be able to maneuver as fast as the Orbiter.

Could this be done? I've always wanted something like this.

Thanks.

P.S. Could it be compatible with RWarp or other warping addons?:lol:

 

[RisingFury]

You're asking for a formation flying autopilot in space. It's possible, but difficult and it certainly wouldn't respond well to high time accelerations. Autopilots don't like high time acceleration and interplanetary flight is mostly high time acceleration.

As for RWarp, I guess you could also just move the other vessel once the distance between the two gets very large...

 

[Motherbrain]

You're asking for a formation flying autopilot in space. It's possible, but difficult and it certainly wouldn't respond well to high time accelerations. Autopilots don't like high time acceleration and interplanetary flight is mostly high time acceleration.

But if it mirrored everything you did and if the other ship was on a invisible "tether" I think it would work with warp add-ons.
When your not warping the other ship would automatically maneuver back into position if it started to drift to far or would just null its relative velocity again.
The maneuvering limitations between two types of ships would only be for orbits. I you have say RWarp BOTH ships would use the plugin if you wanted to warp.
Now the "tether" the other ship would have some wiggle room, but not much.
I don't want it to be able to fly in a planets atmosphere just in space. Though that would look cool to.
I know this might be really hard to do. And if your not feeling up to it I understand.
But if I knew how to write a plugin I would make this. Its just an idea.

Autopilots don't like high time acceleration

I have time acceleration turned off for RWarp if that would be a big problem.

 

[ao7g]

In "Computerex Add-on Pack" :

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3508"]Computerex Add-on Pack[/ame]

there is an add-on called "simon", which enables formation flights, for same vessel type only...

 

[Motherbrain]

I tried Simon hahaha:rofl:
You should have seen the chaos it threw my ship in! hehe
That wasn't quite what I had in mind. (I need to learn how to do these things myself:lol

 

[ao7g]

Hmm... Computerex doesn't seem to be active on this forum these days.
But he left the sdk files, so if someone knows c++ and is courageous enough ...

 

[Motherbrain]

I think this Fleet add-on would be a cool add-on.
What would also be cool are permanent space stations.
Space stations that are fully functional but aren't actually vessels.
This way you wouldn't have to add them in every scenario.
Also AI starships would make Orbiter less lonely...
You could also make Babylon 5 style star gates that instead of just blinking your ship from point A to point B would simply warp your ship to another star gate you selected before flying thru the first one in a similar way RWarp does. No pre programing required just place your gates at the beginning of a scenario and away you go. (those gates would make an AWSOME UCGO cargo)!
Then of course theres making Celestia and Orbiter into one and the same game. The what ifs go on and on!